Jason Chin during a performance at iO Theater in Chicago on Saturday, July 19, 2014.

Chicago Tribune:

Jason R. Chin, a longtime improv performer, director and instructor at iO Theater, was reported dead late Thursday. He was 46.

His death was announced via Facebook by Charna Halpern, founder and proprietor of iO.

A integral member of the comedy theater for the past 20 years, Chin was a former head of its training center and helped create a number of shows, including “Whirled News Tonight,” which uses current events as a springboard for improvisation and is now a decade into its run.

Chin was scheduled to teach a class at iO Thursday night but did not show up, which was unusual. “He wasn’t the sort of guy to forget or flake out,” Halpern said. “So we were calling him and calling him.”

Two friends went to his Chicago apartment, and when he did not answer, called the police. A Cook County medical examiner’s report Friday said the cause of death was heart disease. “People knew right away something was wrong because he always showed up,” Halpern said.

Chin was born in June 1968 in the Flushing neighborhood of New York City. Like so many others, he moved to Chicago to pursue improv. He was working in marketing for a computer company in Champaign, Ill., and visiting Chicago on the weekends, where a pal was taking classes with Tina Fey. In the documentary “Whether the Weather,” he recalls seeing Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert do an improv set after their Second City show one night and was intimidated. “They were improvising songs that melted my brain, they were that good. Then I went to see a student show and they weren’t that good and I thought, ‘Well, I can do that.’”

That planted the seed and he moved to town in 1995, becoming friendly with performers including Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch. He had since gone on to train a number of other performers including “Saturday Night Live’s” Vanessa Bayer.

“One thing I loved about Jason,” Halpern said, “was he was always watching the newer students and plucking out the people he thought were good and giving them a chance and throwing them into the iO family.”

A calm, steadying presence at iO, Chin was also something of a pop culture nerd, which led to a “Star Wars” spoof in the mid-90s titled “Jedi: A Musical Tour de Force,” which ran for a number of months before the George Lucas camp sent a cease-and-desist letter.

“His ability to improvise a well-packaged story while at the same time providing inspiration for the improvisation that followed was astounding,” said Annoyance Theatre founder Mick Napier. “While watching him you also think, ‘This guy has that many great stories in him?’ He will be so dearly missed.”

Chin wrote a book on improv titled “Long-Form Improvisation & The Art Of Zen: A Manual For Advanced Performers” (2009). From 2009 to 2011, he wrote the blog “An Improvised Blog” for ChicagoNow, a Tribune property. More recently he wrote the blog JasonChinFTW.

Since moving into the theater’s new space in the Clybourn Corridor six months ago, Halpern said she’s noticed “little toy dinosaurs scattered around the theater.” Only recently did she learn that Chin was behind that, “just putting them throughout the theater to give the place some character.”

Jason Chin is survived by his mother Rose Marie Chin, father John Chin, brother Jonathan and sister Jennifer.

San Diego! Get yourself ready for some laughs. Disoriented Comedy, the first ever all female (sorta) all Asian American standup comedy show tour is coming to San Diego. Two shows, one night, featuring Jenny Yang, D’Lo, Atsuko Okatsuka, Yola Lu and a surprise veteran comedy headliner that you do not want to miss.

It’s happening Friday, January 23 at The Comedy Palace in Kearney Mesa.

Emmy and Grammy-nominated comedian Margaret Cho co-hosts a new TLC talk show, All About Sex. We caught up with her and chatted about sex and sexuality, Robin Williams and homelessness, self-love, and the upcoming ABC sitcom Fresh Off The Boat.

CAAM (Center for Asian American Media):

Cho is also performing in the upcoming weeks in Sacramento and Nashville. She’s filming a special standup performance in New York City at the Gramercy Theatre on March 7. Check her website for more information. All About Sexpremieres January 10th on TLC at 11 pm.

—Momo Chang

So, yeah, we can just dive right in. Can you tell me a little bit about All About Sex and what it’s going to cover?
It’s an advice show and it’s a talk show. And we’ll take questions from social media about sexuality. It kind of covers all different kinds of sexuality. My area is alternative sexuality—BDSM, queer questions, questions about sex toys. I have been in the alternative sexual community for my entire adult life and I served on the board of Good Vibrations, which is a really important sex toy company for women. And I have a lot of experience in the area of polyamory and alternative sexuality in general. So I’m there to field questions about that.

I’m really thrilled about the show. We have myself on the panel, a doctor who’s really knowledgeable about everything— Dr. Tiffanie [Davis Henry]—and Heather [McDonald] and Marissa [Jaret Winokur] are there to keep it really funny. We’re ready to rock. (See all the hosts’ bios below).

This question is a reader submitted question—Lauren Lola asks: What do you think is the most fascinating thing about sex?
I think it’s just so personal and it’s private. And what I think is most important about sexuality is your own relationship to your own [sexuality]. I think sexuality is always brought up in context of relationships but in truth, the sex life that you have with yourself is way more important than anything you would have with somebody else. The meaning of women’s sexuality is always kind of in relationship to men, or has been historically, but I want to separate that and make it about the individual and make it about establishing that connection with yourself, which I think builds a lot of self-esteem, it builds a lot of trust in our own bodies. That’s my goal, is to help women establish a better relationship with their own sexuality.

Could you talk about your other show, your standup comedy show?
My standup comedy show, I’ll be filming the special for it at the Gramercy Theatre in March. It’s a really a show that is about the way that there’s a rising tide against women, violence, there’s an incredible, terrible trend that I’ve noticed and it’s been around and it makes me really insane. The show is really about finding an answer and trying to stop it. And that anger is okay. I feel it and a lot of women are feeling it. And the show is called There’s no I in Team, but There is a Cho in Psycho.

I have a question about All American Girl. It’s been 20 years and it was a very historically significant show. Do you have any reflections on it looking back?
Well, I’m grateful to have been a part of it. I’m glad to have done it, I’m glad that it was a part of my life. I wish things that I’d done things differently, or I wish I had more control or confidence. But what’s great is that now, finally, there’s going to be another Asian American family show with Fresh Off The Boat. And that’s a show that I helped out a little bit with. I helped Eddie [Huang] out in the beginning and offered him some advice and I learned a lot from him as well. But I feel like with his show Fresh Off The Boat, my dream is realized. Like I actually set out to do something, and it finally got done 20 years later by Eddie Huang. So I’m grateful to him. I think the show is really great. I think it’s going to be a hit.

Nowadays, there are a lot of Asian Pacific American comedians doing their thing. And I think you really helped pave the way for that. What does it feel like seeing a little more diversity in standup comedy?
I’m really proud. I feel very responsible for all of them. I feel like they’re my children. Like I really feel this maternal feeling towards all Asian American comedians. I’m so proud and grateful that they are doing it. I feel like in my little part, I contributed to that. I’m so elated to have inspired people. So they can do what I did and take it so much further. And that’s the best.

Do you have any advice or words of wisdom for people who don’t fit into the mainstream? Anything you want to share with young people?
It’s great to not fit in. It’s great to be different. It’s important to be different, and I think everybody is different. Nobody is the same. We’re all individuals. Whatever you want to pursue, you should do it. A lot of times, especially with Asian American kids, we tend to put other peoples’ happiness or other peoples’ ideas about us first, which is why I think there are fewer Asian American artists because we tend to want to please our parents and please other people before we please ourselves. In truth, we can’t really do that. We have to just do our own thing and be yourself. I encourage everybody to be themselves.

I know homelessness is a big issue you care about, in part because of your late friend Robin Williams. Are there other social issues you’re really passionate about?
Oh yeah, I mean, many things. Before this, the last several years I’ve been working on marriage equality and I’m always about racial politics. I’m always about gender politics, and feminism is really important to me. Homelessness is an issue that it’s something I can directly affect in a very small way but in a gratifying way. So that’s why I’m doing this [#BeRobin] project here [in San Francisco]. I feel like what you say is one thing, but if you can actually do something to alter the situation, that’s really important.

Is there anything else—any other projects we can look forward to?
Well I think I’m going to be putting some music that will be related to the #BeRobin project. It’s like very, very connected to music to me. As well as a documentary about the events, which is really beautiful. I’ll be touring a lot, so there’s a lot of stuff coming up.

Thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to add?
No, I’m excited about this upcoming year. 2014 was really hard for a lot of reasons, you know, the loss of Robin, the loss of Joan Rivers, which was really devastating. But I feel like I’m so lucky to have known them, and so lucky to have them in my life and now it’s time to come up and parent myself. I feel kind of like an orphan but I feel really confident and strong and just proud that I got to know these great people.

Our latest Haikus with Hotties poet is the Taiwanese American piano prodigy turned American Ninja Warrior competitor Yen Chen. He recently joined an esteemed group of athletes on the hit NBC obstacle course competition show, based on the Japanese sports entertainment television special Sasuke.

Chen first heard about Sasuke when an English-dubbed version of the show called Ninja Warrior was being broadcast in the U.S. on the now-defunct G4 channel. Producers announced they were making an American spin-off in 2009. An audition tape Chen filmed, where he made light of Asian American male stereotypes, went viral, and as a result, he got a shot at the course. Though he didn’t have an athletic background, he had previously taken up rock climbing to conquer his fear of heights, and his resulting grip strength now serves him well in difficult obstacles, including the Salmon Ladder, Giant Cycle and the Doorknob Arch.

This year, Chen became one of only 18 finalists to make it to Stage 2 of the Las Vegas Finals at Mount Midoriyama — an impressive feat considering only 90 competitors from the multiple-city national tryouts made it to Vegas, and only two athletes made it to Stage 3, where they both fell. So the challenge to become the first American Ninja Warrior to complete the course still remains, and it could be Chen.

So what does it take to tackle Mount Midoriyama while maintaining ultimate hotness? We seek answers through the ancient art of haiku.

Ninja warriors
like you need badass nicknamesstarting with “The.” Right?

San Francisco! The Bad Asians are coming for you. On Saturday, August 9, six API comedians will take the stage for Bad Asians: A Comedy Showcase, presented by API Cultural Center, Bindlestiff Studio and The Colossal Show.

Headlining that night is Kevin Shea, seen on Comedy Central, HBO and Jimmy Kimmel Live.

APICC – A San Francisco arts nonprofit founded in 1996 whose mission is to support and produce multidisciplinary art reflective of the unique experiences of Asian Pacific Islanders living in the United States.

THE COLOSSAL SHOW – The Bay Area’s newest variety show and incubator of eclectic comedians featuring a diverse range of sharp and scintillating performers who embrace their idiosyncrasies and explore their creative frontiers.